Aimee D. (SheWhoReads) reviewed on + 35 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This was an excellent novel! I devoured it in the span of one day, and I already can't wait for the sequel to come out! It's got a real winner of a concept -- the Dancers and the Lorekeepers are just fascinating to me -- and some really great worldbuilding. Too many fantasy novels use recycled, generic, vaguely European settings -- not Christie Golden! Arukan is a complex society with an original, fresh, vaguely Middle Eastern feel to it. This was not a world I've read about before; Arukan is someplace new.
Kevla is a wonderful character, a vivid, likeable human being. We watch her grow from a child to a woman, and we get completely involved in her life. We identify with her and want to see her succeed. All of this is perhaps why some of the psychological places that Golden takes this character (please excuse the vagueness, but I don't want to give anything away to people who haven't read the book for themselves yet) make us, the readers, so uneasy. Golden takes some real risks and isn't afraid of pushing the envelope. And, while it may have been uncomfortable to go there, it makes the book feel so much more real. Nothing is in here just for the shock value; it is all absolutely necessary to further the plot. The way Arkuan society was structured made the particular event I'm referring to (and once you've read the book, you'll know exactly what I mean) inevitable, but nonetheless shocking, horrible, and tragic -- but always, always, emotionally honest and real. All of the actions that Kevla and the other main characters take ring true. There's not one false note.
The bottom line: this book is fabulous, original, engrossing, and real. Buy it now!
Kevla is a wonderful character, a vivid, likeable human being. We watch her grow from a child to a woman, and we get completely involved in her life. We identify with her and want to see her succeed. All of this is perhaps why some of the psychological places that Golden takes this character (please excuse the vagueness, but I don't want to give anything away to people who haven't read the book for themselves yet) make us, the readers, so uneasy. Golden takes some real risks and isn't afraid of pushing the envelope. And, while it may have been uncomfortable to go there, it makes the book feel so much more real. Nothing is in here just for the shock value; it is all absolutely necessary to further the plot. The way Arkuan society was structured made the particular event I'm referring to (and once you've read the book, you'll know exactly what I mean) inevitable, but nonetheless shocking, horrible, and tragic -- but always, always, emotionally honest and real. All of the actions that Kevla and the other main characters take ring true. There's not one false note.
The bottom line: this book is fabulous, original, engrossing, and real. Buy it now!
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